


post-mortem

by Anonymous



Category: The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Cunnilingus, Dubious Consent, F/F, Ghost Sex, Magic Made Them Do It, Secret Crush, Sibling Incest, Surreal, The House Made them Do It, Unreliable Narrator, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Fisting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-29 03:20:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30149943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Canon divergence. Things get weird after arriving back to Hill House.
Relationships: Shirley Crain/Theodora "Theo" Crain
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2
Collections: Kink Lucky Dip





	post-mortem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StripySock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripySock/gifts).



Shirley is weightless, floating in the air, heavy and light all at once. Nothing is quite real, like she’s stuck in some primordial darkness, distant, spinning out, like a music box in perpetual motion. All she has to do is float. Floating. Here and not here.

_Shirley._

She’s warm. She’s safe. It’s like being back in the womb, cocooned together with her mother, in placenta and amniotic fluids. She knows this. She studied this. Got up close and personal with it. Blood on her hands, under her nails. 

_Wake up, Shirley._

She knows death better than most people. She does it every day. 

Shirley doesn’t wake up (yet). 

***

Shirley's hands reach for Theo, pawing at her, grabbing at her skin and face. She thinks about how incandescently furious she is at her, and how much that makes her wanna touch her more, stroke her skin. If Theo wants to feel something else besides the void, she can feel her.

_Do you remember this?_

“I want your gloves off,” Shirley says to her, because she thinks about that, Theo, naked, bare, untouched. She thinks about it a lot. She kisses Theo hard on the mouth. Her sister tastes like vodka. Tastes like tonic. Taste sweet and dirty all at once. Like she'll go down and smooth and easy but it’ll hurt later, like a hangover, like too much excess. Throb through her like a post orgasm migraine, full of regret and longing. 

Regret. She shouldn’t want this.

“Wait, stop,” Theo says, gasping, breathless. She doesn't push her away. Gloved hands grasp at Shirley's shoulders, but she wants skin. She wants something else. She wants to crawl inside her sister and look inside.

“This doesn’t happen," Theo tells her. Theo's hair is all mussed up, sticking up, sex-tousled and her lipgloss smeared across her lips and teeth. She looks sexy and she looks like sex, and Shirley isn't supposed to want her like this but she does.

She is tired of holding together. Being held together, one stitch at a time. 

Black stitches on a gaping maw, swirling in her guts. Fear and arousal all at once, creating one heady cocktail. 

"You don’t happen. You’re not supposed to be here,” Theo says. Calm. Level. Trading places.

Briefly pausing, sucking in a breath. Shirley blinks, and places her hands on Theo's shoulders, trying to steady herself. _You can't get away from me like this._ Shirley wants to ask what she means, but instead what comes out of her mouth is, "what the fuck?"

“It didn’t happen like this.” 

Shirley pulls back, mouth spit-shiny slick. 

“I...” she says. Theo is solid under her, real. This feels real. It’s real, right?

( _It’s digesting you)_

“This didn’t happen,” Theo says, “but you wanted it too, right? Didn't you?” Her eyes are dark pits, voids to get lost in. Her voice is mean and sharp, like the angles of her face, the turn of her cheekbone. “You wanted me to fuck you?” 

Theo gasps and shuts her eyes and—

  
  


***

It doesn't happen like this. It never has.

It didn’t happen this way. She’s never touched Theo like that. 

But she’s wanted to. 

From her window, she watched Theo walk in with a girl, week after week, different girl after different girl. Imagined her in bed, with some other woman. Imagined how she made them come, her wide mouth between someone’s pink pussy lips. Her tongue, pretty and slick. Imagines Theo's own cunt, clenching around fingers, climbing on some girl's face and shoving her cunt in her mouth. Shirley lies in bed awake, husband asleep and fingered herself imaging it was her sister between her legs, her sister’s fingers, bare and long and pushing on her insides, wishes it was Theo’s wide mouth kissing her clit. 

In the middle of the night, it’s easy to think of this. In the dead of morning, Shirley makes herself forget. 

Shirley has a lot of practice at lying to herself. 

***

_Come back, Shirley_ someone cries out to her. A familiar voice. A voice she’s always known. She can’t tell if it’s her sister or her mother or something else entirely. Maybe it's the house, calling out to her, like it called out to Nell. This is a different tactic. This isn't how it got Nell. But Shirley's broken in a different way.

Something dark and alien uncurls under her skin. The beating of her heart, maybe, warm and pumping inside her, heating her up. That must be her heart, right?

Warmth, filling her up, turning her hot and ready. 

_Come back home._

  
  


***

Theo is naked on the cold table beneath her, bright florescent light flickering above them. Shirley can't help but admire her, her pale skin, her long legs, her thick thighs and bare breasts with pretty pink nipples.

Naked, exposed. Vulnerable. All for her.

_Is this what you imagined? Is this what you wanted?_

Shirley doesn’t know. She isn’t thinking about that as she straddles her, fully clothed, a scalpel in hand.

“Shirley?” Theo's eyes are wide. Her bottom lip shakes. Shirley expects Theo to push her away. She's not tied down. She's just naked and cold and splayed out, and Theo's rage tends to win out all the time. She can fight her, if she wants. Shirley slides a hand between her thighs but not into her cunt like she's always thought of, small little day dreams, wondering what it’d look like, smell like. She spreads her legs open a little wider. She can smell her here, ripe. Musky.

“Hold still,” Shirley says, bringing the scalp down just under her collarbone. "I'm not going to hurt you," she promises, even as she cuts lightly down her body, under her collarbone, above her breast. Not a true cut, just enough to watch some blood flow.

This isn’t an autopsy. She could always cut deeper.

The first touch of pain makes Theo gasp, suck in a breath. When Shirley brings her mouth to the wound, Theo groans deeply, like she's fingering her, fucking her open. Her hot copper blood tastes real to her. Sharp. Smokey. Alive. 

"You don't do this," Theo says. Her voice is a gust of wind in her ear.

“I—” Shirley stammers, stumblers, stops, for a moment. “I’m not. I’m not like this,” she agrees. What is she doing? What is happening? A deep sense of revulsion kicks under her guts, in her ribcage, swirling in with the hot twist of arousal. 

Theo can’t help but bare her teeth. “No, you’re the good one.”

“The stable one,” Shirley says. 

“Better than all of us,” Theo says. She snaps her teeth. It makes an audible click.

Shirley shakes her head, and falls off the table, scrambling away like Theo cut her, not the other way around. There’s blood in her mouth, blood dripping down Theo’s body, dark and stark against pale skin. 

_I need to wake up,_ she thinks, and louder, shutting her eyes, she repeats it to herself.

"Shirley!" Theo screams in her ear. It's louder than Nell in the car, Nell between and wait, where _is_ Nell—

“I’m awake,” Shirley shouts back. 

And she is, surrounded by red walls in a dark room, Theo slumped at her feet, dizzy, groaning, eyes hazy.

  
  


***

When Theo kissed her husband, the rage inside Shirley was too bright to see clearly, like she could feel all her anger blinding her, like looking into the sun too long, searing her insides. 

She kept picturing it. Theo’s mouth. Her drunk lips. Her hands.

Shirley wants those hands. She wants to punch her pretty little face. She wants to grab her bare skin and make Shirley look inside her. She wants to slip inside her sister and ask her why her husband?

( _why not her?_ )

Theo talked about needing to feel something besides the emptiness, something else, and snarling, Shirley said "fill yourself up with my husband?"

Theo flinched.

No. It didn't happen like this.

 _Feel me_ , she didn't say. 

She didn't slam her sister around. She didn't tell her, _I could fill you up. I could be the one for you_.

Shirley wasn't sure what she wanted, because she kept this all locked up tight.

***

_You're both awake. You’re just dead._

  
  


***

"You're back," Theo says to her. She reaches out, then lowers her hands abruptly, shaking. She doesn't look good. Theo lies back against the red walls, taking heavy breaths. Skin shiny with sweat. Hair sex-touseled, but she doesn't know who she fucked. Shirley keeps staring at her and feels that drifting away, floating feeling again, like she may fall apart.

"Don't," Theo warns her. She grimaces. "Please. Stay."

 _Stay with me_ floats in the air.

"What's wrong with you?" Shirley asks, then shivers, as she feels it too, heat traveling through her, trying to chase away the cold.

Theo shrugs. There's a dazed, fucked out look in her eyes. She's fully clothed but the way she looks at Shirley feels like she's being picked apart, dissected. Undressed. Obscene. 

"What do you think?" She asks. "This house wants us. It likes us. Me especially." She spreads her legs wide and Theo is in pants, fully clothed, top to bottom but it makes heat flare inside Shirley. She wants to hold on to that feeling.

"Are you real?" Shirley asks. Without noticing what she's doing, she finds herself kneeling, so she's eye level with her sister. She's so pale but her her skin is slick. She can't stop taking heavy deep breaths and Shirley keeps thinking about her skin, touching her, feeling her, chasing out the void. 

Theo nods, slowly, like molasses. Shirley thinks she's be sweet like molasses as well. "I'm as...real as anything else in here." She shivers again. "I'm cold, Shirley."

“Something is wrong with us,” Shirley whispers, hugging herself. They’re alone in the red room. She doesn’t know where Luke or Nell or Steve are. She thinks it’s just the two of them right now. Her cunt throbs with a strange sort of arousal. "I keep seeing things..."

"You keep floating away," Theo says, and she reaches out, tentatively, grasping Shirley's shirt in her hands, the way she used to do when she was younger. "Don't float away again."

A loud gasping shudder rolls through Shirley, like a punch in the gut. She shakes and leans in closer to Theo, until their foreheads are touching each other. She wonders if Theo can feel her like this, feel her thoughts, her insides.

"Yeah," Theo says softly, "but I can feel everything in this whole house." As she speaks, she reaches over and wraps her arms around Shirley, clinging to her.

In the stomach of the house, Shirley is losing it a little. 

"Something is _wrong,_ " she states again.

Theo grins. It's not a happy look. "Of course something is wrong," she says. "We're dead. It's too late for us."

This is the last straw.

Shirley surges forwards and kisses Theo on the mouth. Theo is cold, freezing, like the dead in the house, but she opens her mouth for her and sobs into her skin. The more Shirley kisses her, the warmer she gets.

"Is that what you wanted?" Shirley asks after, pulling away. She doesn't know what she's asking. She doesn't know if she's really here. She just knows it doesn't happen like this, in her head.

“Shirley, please,” her sister pleads. 

Shirley’s skin is hot, burning. There’s an ache that goes down to her guts, churning, twisting. She shivers and realizes her cunt is throbbing. 

Shirley takes off Theo's gloves. Then her coat, her shirt, her bra, until she's bare, miles of beautiful skin and dark dusky pink nipples, standing out. Shirley can't resist leaning down and taking one nipple into her mouth, feeling it harden. Theo makes a moan of pure desire, thick and throaty and it's the sound she's always wanted to hear. She puts one hand on the back of Shirley's head and pushes her further down, urging her down her body. It annoys her, being rushed, so she bites down until Theo yelps. 

Feeling Theo yelp, shake and shiver around her feels good. A better rush than listening to her sister fuck girls and touching herself. She rubs her thighs together, like she get some relief that way but all it does is make her cunt throb and ache. She wants to feel Theo touch her.

"Can you feel me?" Shirley asks, before she moves on. Theo's nipple is hard and shiny with Shirley's spit.

"Yes," Theo says, her breath ragged. "Is that what you wanted? I can see it."

It sounds like an accusation. Shirley isn't sure what she wanted, but she continues on. Pants off then. Then underwear. Theo shaves, but leaves just enough hair to make a statement, nicely groomed, trimmed short. Her cunt is swollen and red, and Shirley thinks it's begging for attention. Theo is fully naked while she remains clothed, like in her dream (or vision), only instead of her blinding bright autopsy room, it's in Hill House. It's in the red room. They're being digested, aren't they?

( _they're dead, aren't they_?)

Shirley lowers her head, holding her sister's legs open for her, and licks a long stripe against her sister's cunt.

Theo sobs, shaking, her body trembling against her, reaching out to grab Shirley's shirt, Shirley's hair, wrapping her fingers tight around her. Shirley can't resist doing it again. She tastes briny and slick and wet.

Without thinking, she slides a finger inside Theo, flexing it, curling up, relishing the way Theo shakes and purrs and bucks up against her.

"Are you warmer now?" Her voice has a strange quality to it. Something is _wrong_ with her. "Can you feel me?"

"Yes," Theo groans, arching up, asking for more with her body. She's beautiful like this and Shirley thinks she's losing her mind.

She adds another finger, then another, until she's stretching her out with four, sliding in and out slowly, reaching down to lick her clit occasionally. Just enough to make her scream. Not enough to make her come.

"How about now?" She asks. "Is this good? Or do you want more?"

"Please," Theo begs. She can't see her at this angle, but she sounds ragged, short of breath, voice sandpaper rough. She sounds desperate as Shirley pushes her fist inside her.

 _I want to be inside you,_ Shirley thinks. She's hot and tight around her. She's never been this close to anyone.

Her hand is smile but as Shirley glances up, Theo's eyes go wider than she's ever seen them in her life. There's a look of shock that almost worries Shirley, that makes her think she's hurting her.

"I can stop," she says.

"No, please," Theo says, panting. Jutting out her chin. "Keep going."

Shirley makes Theo cry out with her orgasm, loud enough she's sure everyone in the house heard it.

***

“Don’t you think we should stop?” 

Shirley pulls away, breathless, panting heavily in her sister's lap. She's naked now too, her legs shaky and weak, and she wants her sister's fingers inside her. She doesn't want to think about being the good one. 

Theo's eyes are very wide, the black of her pupil almost swallowing all color. 

“Why?” she asks, shaking. Her voice is slow and languid and not quite right.

Theo has no answer.

See, it doesn’t matter anymore. They’re both dead. 


End file.
